


The Thread

by kinpika



Series: BLUE [8]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Hollow Ground Thinking, Little bit of anxiety and identity reveal, spoilers for retribution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 22:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19238461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinpika/pseuds/kinpika
Summary: “Logan is on her way to see you.”I can see that, you think, flicking between the elevator and your floor. Tapping her foot erratically in on the metal. You can’t make out what’s in her hands.“Mr Ortega? Sir? She’s—she seemed a bit… off.”The truth is out there, you just had to see.





	The Thread

**Author's Note:**

> Links into several of my [other](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19096561) [fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19096309/chapters/45371212#workskin) [with](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19096309/chapters/45371341#workskin) [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19096309/chapters/45371353#workskin) [similar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19096309/chapters/45745930#workskin) [idea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19096309/chapters/45746185)

You barely get the call in time, linked from your main office, but you had a feeling something wasn’t quite right. All the reinforced steel in the world couldn’t seem to hide whatever was happening in the building. Concentrated noise, and even as you pull up cameras to check the halls, you don’t have to guess.

“Yeah?”

_“Logan is on her way to see you.”_

I can see that, you think, flicking between the elevator and your floor. Tapping her foot erratically in on the metal. You can’t make out what’s in her hands.

_“Mr Ortega? Sir? She’s—she seemed a bit… off.”_

“I’ll handle it.”

Out of your chair, through the door. Quickly, quickly. Had to make it to the elevator before Logan stepped off. Before anyone else got the message to appear. Telling yourself to move faster, _faster_. A small miracle you made it just as the elevator arrives with _ding!_ and you know you should smile. Maybe school your face into something of mild indifference (especially after your last argument, which still makes you wince).

But Logan is waiting for you. That shouldn’t surprise you, with how she holds a file in her hand, brow raised, face impossibly unreadable. You can only think, this isn’t the person you know. And you have never been more thankful she can’t read your mind.

“Logan—”

“Your office.”

She leads the way, long strides ahead. You are exactly four behind her, and she only stops because you still have the key. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Inside.”

The door barely swings, and she’s fishing something from her jacket. If you had to assume anything, with how she waves it in the corners of the room, it’s to sweep for bugs. But the design is sleek, small. Almost unnoticeable had it not been for how she seems too focused on doing a double-check.

“Logan, stop already, it’s secure.”

File on your desk, device tucked away, before she sighs. Runs her hands through her hair. “Sorry, sorry. Where’s your board?”

“Can you _please_ tell me what’s going on, first? Are you in trouble?” You try to cross the room, but she holds her hands up. Stay back.

“I have something to show you.”

The last time she had said something along those lines, it was a very private twenty-four hours tucked away in her apartment. You know this is nothing like that time, as she cracks her knuckles a little too much to be comfortable.

“It’s over there.”

Logan is nothing if not efficient in how she pulls it out from behind your desk, and waves you out of the way. Safest place was to sit at your desk, and watch her fiddle. And try not to stare at what was in her file while she situated the board front and centre.

You watch, with a frown, as she places one photo in the middle. Smooths her fingers over the edges, until the blutack was nice and flat, before stepping back. Logan blocked your view, and you had to get up from behind your desk to see what it was she had done.

Time slows down. Strange, you think, as you watch her snap the cap off the marker, looping letters over the photo. Easy, as if second nature. Right over where you had swiped off the name only a week earlier, frustrated, dead end.

_H O L L O W G R O U N D_

Big. Loud. Right over a photo of Logan. And you know it’s Logan, because you remember every little curve and freckle. Wrapping of scars around her temple. Except. _Except_. This photo was remarkably unblemished compared to the woman before you.

Same frightening stare, that went on for years. Same mark, just to the left on her chin. Black eyes, darker hair. Scars did not mark the skin in the way they did for Logan, but the resemblance was uncanny.

You don’t understand.

Logan continues to pop, reseal, pop, the cap of the marker. Up down up down. Clicks filling the empty space, as you try to work out what she was showing you. What it meant. There’s nothing really, no threads that connect her, and… Hollow Ground. That was almost unthinkable (so much so, a small part of you considers that it was in front of you, the entire time).

“How… what?”

“I told you about the Farm.”

“Yeah, but that’s—I don’t—” splutter over your words. Farm. Government. Re-gene. A flurry of information that you thought you had known, understood, until Logan had ripped out the rug from underneath you.

And then you realise, Logan wasn’t talking to you. More photos, more threads. Arrows pointing left, right, up. You don’t recognise any of these people, but you watch as Logan circles faces, explains.

“Handler, had a daughter. She got ‘sick’,” emphasis there, making it obvious, giving you another question, “and he was part of a military ops program. Specialised training, y’know.” Hard red line, dragged down to the face once again.

“Farm, right, gave him a bargaining chip. They’d save her life, he had to do a bit of work for her.”

Another woman, whose face means nothing to you. Nor does the sheet attached with numbers, code. But you have to keep up, _you do._ You asked for Logan’s help, and you didn’t mean to push so hard until she snapped.

Had barked at you, even, about leaving her out of it. Until today, when she slapped a folder on your desk, and started pulling all this information out.

“Except they played him, because he’s a dickhead and easy to manipulate — trust me. Shoved his daughter in a tube and started pulling stuff from her, because they’re also dickheads.”

_Slap_. A photo of what you would consider the ‘tube’. But it was bigger than anything you could’ve imagined. Cords sticking out of it, trailing off somewhere unseen. Blue hue. Body, hanging in the middle. You can’t see much, but your imagination filled out the rest.

A scribbled name over the top read _Walsh, Billie_. “Now, she had a pretty good life up until that point. Except for her mum being bumped off, took the hero pill as a teen, estranged from her father. Convenient for her to go missing, because her dad is off the grid, no known other relatives.”

Circle again. Big line back up to the girl’s father. “And he of course starts getting suspicious, because he hasn’t seen his daughter in years.” A pause, and Logan finally looks at you. “Keeping up?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Quick nod. “So he wants out, right. Fulfilled five years of his contract. So they up it. Start cloning her.” Another line is drawn far left, and she sticks another photo up. “This guy, Evan, claims to be a doctor or something, gets involved.

“Fucks around a lot. Makes a bunch of failed clones. Good for experiments.” Logan lets those words hang, and you’ve heard her mention it before. Even Chen had seemed mildly put off by how she insisted _experiment_ , not mistake.

“So, Billie, she’s pretty damn handy with her brain. Telepathy, yeah? Wanted to hear. So _of course_ ,” Logan emphasises this, like you should know and be agreeing entirely, “she’s been listening in to all of this. For years. _Years_.”

There’s another photo put up now. Not of a face, but a location. Hole blown out the side, and you don’t have to squint to see carnage. Your stomach drops, a little. “That’s—”

“Nevada, yeah. I’m not ‘born’ yet by this stage either, technically. Billie ends up escaping, and it’s fucking bedlam. Somehow they didn’t see this coming. Fuckers.” Last kick of a word, not aimed at you. At the faces.

You don’t want to ask the next question. “How… how does this relate to…?” and you motion, quickly. Middle photo. Logan’s face. Hollow Ground’s face.

“They didn’t stop the program even though they lost their primary source. Got enough out of Billie to keep going for a long ass time. And they did.”

“So you’re…? And she’s…?”

“This guy,” a stab with the marker over the first man’s face. Ignoring you. “Gets stuck training us. I’m pretty sure he was being conditioned because honestly he seemed fine with it all. They did always have music playing in the labs and stuff.”

“Logan, wait, hang on—“ I’m trying to understand, and you push your way in front of her. “How did you know all this?” Where did you find all of this? You want to ask. Was it just laying about? Right in front of you this whole time, it seemed, and you want to kick yourself.

She looks at you, and you realise just how carefully she was holding it together. Fragmented, like one false move and she would shatter. “Logan?”

“Let me finish?”

The minute draws out as you stare. You want to hold her. Like an ache, deep in you, to just want—what? Fix things? Move forward? Look back? No, none of that, you know, batting away those thoughts. You just want to hold her, be there for her. That this didn’t change anything.

“Alright.”

But you step aside. Close, and she breathes a little slower, sticking up another photo as she went. Words not as rushed, as she explains. Lines are drawn, arrows pointing in. Circle, around her face, that woman’s face. It doesn’t change _anything_ , you know.


End file.
